Biden to cancel Keystone XL pipeline permit.

[Ingomike]

Storage capabilities exist and will continue to improve. We are still very much in the infancy of renewable energy as a globally adopted energy source.

Obviously, it takes non-renewable energy sources at some point along the chain. Obviously, there is going to be a carbon net negative in the upstart of these industries. I am not so dull as to miss your whataboutism, but...

We have to start somewhere.

The endgame is to be carbon neutral and to minimize our impact on the earth and its finite resources. Are you saying we shouldn't even try at all? Should we just continue to be wholly dependent upon fossil fuels? Throw our hands up in the air, buy cars manufactured before 1975, rip out their catalytic converters, then do laps around the country?

We do stockpile it and we would. I've referenced this link for a third time now, but they discuss what effectively answers your second question.

Bow down to the oracle, he listened to a left wing NPR story and knows why he is talking about.

Not...

 

[phylodog]

People are not being honest about the technology we have at hand.

Therein lies my problem with left. If their ideas and platform were so wonderful it wouldn’t require the robust amount of lies, deceit and misrepresentations to convince people to be on their side.

 

[jamil]

So they can step in and "fix" the problem, with MORE government power.

I think 0bama explained it pretty well.
“you didn’t build that.”

 

[INgunowner]

Bow down

Your mortality precludes my reverence.

 

[Lushamania]

The storage capabilities are nowhere close to what is needed to replace fossil fuels, the other part is mining for components used in batteries are very destructive. People are not being honest about the technology we have at hand. I agree Renewable resource are needed, but the technology is not there Jumping on the bandwagon early does nothing but make is vulnerable.

Yeah, the NiMH battery in my Prius is less than ideal, if I've not made it clear on my personal viewpoint there. And I am super concerned about the world's increasing demand of Lithium.

I don't understand your part about making us vulnerable, though. Would you mind expanding upon that, please?

I am happy to at least see us be on common ground, regarding renewable resources being needed.

Bow down to the oracle, he listened to a left wing NPR story and knows why he is talking about.

Not...

I'm not proclaiming to be an oracle and never have been; I'm simply backing up what I say with a relevant news article. Might I also add, while not being dismissive, flippant, or insulting.

 

[woowoo2]

Storage capabilities exist and will continue to improve.

At what environmental cost?
The raw material needed for battery banks capable of holding any reasonable amount of power would be devastating to the environment.
Then, once the storage systems are built, they would need to be rebuilt every 5-7 years.
Anyone who deals with industrial UPS systems knows this.

We would be better off going with nuke power plants.

 

[INgunowner]

I don't understand your part about making us vulnerable, though. Would you mind expanding upon that, please?

Do you own a gun?

 

[Jaybird1980]

Yeah, the NiMH battery in my Prius is less than ideal, if I've not made it clear on my personal viewpoint there. And I am super concerned about the world's increasing demand of Lithium.

I don't understand your part about making us vulnerable, though. Would you mind expanding upon that, please?

I am happy to at least see us be on common ground, regarding renewable resources being needed.

The grid we have now is fore the most part very stable. Mainly because of our ability to control output to demand needed. You dont just flood the grid with electricity and use it as needed. Output has to be tailored every time a switch is thrown or AC kicks on. That control is not available with the technology we have now.
I have been at work and seen what it takes to stop a rolling blackout. Look into the NE blackout 2003, that was stopped by our plants in NWI. The grid will be fragile and easy to duplicate these blackouts, without the control needed to stop them.
How fast can you increase the output from Solar and Wind at the exact moment everyone gets home from work and fires up the AC, TV, Electric Water heater and plugs in the Teslas. The answer is they don't have that technology yet.

Our enemies will have the ability to remove our electricity in large areas very easily. If thats not a vulnerability i don't know what is.

 

[Jaybird1980]

At what environmental cost?
The raw material needed for battery banks capable of holding any reasonable amount of power would be devastating to the environment.
Then, once the storage systems are built, they would need to be rebuilt every 5-7 years.
Anyone who deals with industrial UPS systems knows this.

We would be better off going with nuke power plants.

Nuke Plants are great, but they have made sure there wont be more. Look into what has been done to slow down and increase the cost at Vogtle, so they can push Solar and Wind

 

[Lushamania]

At what environmental cost?
The raw material needed for battery banks capable of holding any reasonable amount of power would be devastating to the environment.
Then, once the storage systems are built, they would need to be rebuilt every 5-7 years.
Anyone who deals with industrial UPS systems knows this.

I discussed this above, but my stance is we have to start somewhere.

We would be better off going with nuke power plants.

Though I wouldn't go so far as to say "better off," you won't hear me dispute the positives of nuclear energy. Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and, to a lesser degree ('cause it wasn't human error), Fukushima have all ensured humanity seeking non-nuclear replacements.

The grid we have now is fore the most part very stable. Mainly because of our ability to control output to demand needed. You dont just flood the grid with electricity and use it as needed. Output has to be tailored every time a switch is thrown or AC kicks on. That control is not available with the technology we have now.
I have been at work and seen what it takes to stop a rolling blackout. Look into the NE blackout, that was stopped by our plants in NWI. The grid will be fragile and easy to duplicate these blackouts, without the control needed to stop them.
How fast can you increase the output from Solar and Wind at the exact moment everyone gets home from work and fires up the AC, TV, Electric Water heater and plugs in the Teslas. The answer is they don't have that technology yet.

Thanks for the explanation! This thread is not the place, but one day I'd like to pick your brain on the security aspect of the electrical grid.

 

[ghuns]

...We would be better off going with nuke power plants.

This X1000.

If had Jeff Bezos $$$, I'd be building nuke plants along the California/Nevada state line. On the Nevada side, of course.

In 20 years when California has gone completely renewable and can't charge their Teslas, let alone turn on a light bulb, I'd sell them a little juice, for about 100x the retail price. The rest of the power produced, I'd give away.

 

[R3COIL]

I love how individuals try to correlate shutting down an oil pipeline with a moral duty to better the environment without providing a more secure alternative. I get that new energy should be explored, but that seems explanitorally irrelevant to how best to transport what is needed today.
Crude is typically transported by four means: truck, rail, ship, and pipe. I fail to see how shutting down the pipeline can be justified while pretending that the other means of transportation are any less dangerous. It is just an exercise in political virtue signaling to uninformed individuals.

 

[woowoo2]

I discussed this above, but my stance is we have to start somewhere.

Why?
Why must we go down a very expensive road that leads to no where?

Renewables have their place.
But to dream that they can replace traditional power plants is crazy talk to anyone who works with industrial power.

I am sitting in a building at work, I am currently pulling 600 amps of 480V AC three phase on a cloudy winter day.
Try to make that much energy with solar.....

 

[ghuns]

...Try to make that much energy with solar.....

Especially in Indiana... In January.

 

[Timjoebillybob]

No, one solar panel does not equal one coal powered plant. You and I both know that the difference between renewable energy sources is that the generating device can, and will be, placed just about anywhere. We may all know about the wind farm north of Lafayette. Yes, the area it takes up is huge, but that land still holds its farmland use, too. As more and more renewable energy generating sources are put into the grid, normalization will occur and will fill the void that non-renewable energy plants leave.

I'm quite familiar with that wind farm, I live maybe 10 minutes away. Do you know what the lifespan of one of those is? About 20 years, the blades aren't recyclable they have to go into a landfill. A good bit of the rest is, but virtually none of it can be reused, so they have to start from scratch including the giant cement pad they sit on. They are currently having a problem with that in Europe.

Storage capabilities exist and will continue to improve. We are still very much in the infancy of renewable energy as a globally adopted energy source.

Obviously, it takes non-renewable energy sources at some point along the chain. Obviously, there is going to be a carbon net negative in the upstart of these industries. I am not so dull as to miss your whataboutism, but...

Per your link we are expected to have about 5.4 gigawatts by 2024 in storage capacity. The average wind turbine in the US running at 33% capacity produces about 400k kwh per month. So it's estimated we'll have enough storage capacity by 2024 to hold about months worth of output for 13.5 wind turbines. Or enough to power about 186k average homes for a day.

Producing that storage is extremely bad for the environment and the planet.

You want to promote clean energy? Promote nuclear, it's about the only way to go.

How many homes can an average wind turbine power? | U.S. Geological Survey

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the average U.S. home uses 893 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity per month. Per the U.S. Wind Turbine Database, the mean capacity of wind turbines that achieved commercial operations in 2020 is 2.75 megawatts (MW). At a 42% capacity...

www.usgs.gov

You made a comment upthread about turning in your prius for a 1970s car so similar. From a strictly energy and environmental view, that would be a good trade. Actually it would be a tremendous one. An electric vehicle is much more destructive environmentally and energy wise than the average dinosaur burner when factoring in lifespan and energy/materials used to produce each.

 

[INgunowner]

Jeff Bezos $$$,

Ironically, Mr. Bezos is currently expanding his empire according to that exact model.

Build supply chain
Create want
Drive out competition
Create need
Expand and diversify
Create dependence

Jobs, Gates, Bezos, Zuck, Biden...
It's not that they're smarter...
(Although they do accept what most try to hide or deny.)
Ultimately, their power is given to them freely.

 

[BugI02]

All true. That said, I, for one, am just not on the mood for having some self-righteous leftist telling us we are all wrong. He can go back to Mother Jones, or Huffington, or wherever he came from.

Well, he hasn't even made the case for the spending (100s of billions or trillions) to develop that new infrastructure build-out for the all electric Udopia, all the while maintaining the parallel existing infrastructure for oil based transit out of necessity. Environmentalists are fond of cost/benefit analysis, as long it isn't applied to their own wish list

Will we still be allowed to heat our homes with gas? If so, where does he think that comes from? If not, how will the needed electricity to do so via resistance heating be generated, given that today's best photovoltaics can provide 30-35% of a home's needs for 3 to 5 hours per day at the latitudes that 2/3 of the US population lives at and wind power is unable to supply reliable continuous power to make up the difference. If the additional power comes from natural gas peaking production, again where does the gas come from? If from another source, which one - nuclear? Don't we have to dig up 'mother earth' to get the fuel for that, too? And don't we have a less secure source of supply for the needed ores?

Is he cognizant of the fact that a viable fusion power plant is 25 years away and likely always will be? California has one of the best environments for solar in the southern 1/3 of the state but it still can't keep the lights on despite really impressive adoption of solar by individuals. Part of the reason for that is that the electric utility has lower revenues due to solar reducing demand, but people still demand reserve capacity. PG&E thus winds up having to maintain the existing infrastructure with less revenue to do so. So who is going to fund the needed electric everything infrastructure?

Also in Cali, in a state where many have to drive long distances just to pursue an ordinary life, remember that the useable 75Kwh of your Tesla model S battery is the equivalent of only 2.25 gallons of gasoline, and although the Tesla wastes less of its energy in the form of waste heat, and thus is around 3 times as efficient as a modern car of similar size, it takes 6 to 8 hours of downtime to recharge, whereas it would take less than five minutes to replace that same 2.25 gal of gas - so good luck driving a Tesla cross-country in anything less than weeks. It is possible to recharge faster, at the cost of higher voltages (more infrastructure cost) with attendant increased fire risk and decreased battery cycle life. All current high capacity batteries rely on Lithium and Cobalt which are also dug from 'mother earth' and which also come with much less secure sources very little of which is domestic

So maybe he should do what Jetta should and shut down NPR occasionally and do his own cost/benefit analysis, and if he is honest with himself try to answer the question of why it would benefit the economy to spend so much time and effort to simply duplicate capabilities already in existence

And I haven't even begun to go into the NIMBY resistance that will hamstring the locating and construction of all the new power lines necessary to institute electric everything. With today's left, quite literally 'pipe dreams'

 

[churchmouse]

Solar. What a total joke for Indiana.

As the lefty's out themselves I feel less inclined to think we are a 2-A forum anymore.

How a person looks at the world makes me no never mind but if you come into a gun forum and act like you care.........

And a 70 year old man is not going to sell his truck. Of course I us it. Why would I have it. Again.....the lefty mindset.

If you want to roll in a battery powered car so be it. "DO NOT TELL ME HOW I SHOULD USE MY TRUCK". I came into this with gasoline and I will go out with it.

Just dont do it.

 

[BugI02]

You happen to be out of touch with the reason that you are blessed with electricity that is "vastly cheaper". If you think that will remain when coal, oil and natural gas are removed from the equation, then you are wildly mistaken. Wind and Solar output and control dont even come close to matching Nuclear, Coal, and Natural gas power plants. When those fossil fuels are removed from the equation the grid is going to get very sketchy and costly, what do you think it does to the grid when everyone decides its time to recharge those Teslas? Renewable energy doesn't have the storage or control for that kind of demand. Take a look at Commiefornia, wont it be nice when the government has to schedule your electric usage for you, and it cost 3 times more?

Just my opinion, gained from a career in electric production.

Also the cost of your Tesla will definitely increase when the steel production is affected, you know because of coal.

He has only to look to current Germany, a technological highly developed first world economy, to see how a grid can do when fossil fuels and nuclear are removed for political reasons. Renewables cannot pick up the load. I think the Germans are not only buying NG from the Sovs but are buying electricity generated by coal from former Ebloc countries. I guess the pollution being made elsewhere is out of sight out of mind

For the life of me I don't see why more money isn't spent on finding ways to burn cheap, widespread and plentiful coal without attendant pollution rather than attempting to switch to technologies that will never scale

 

[BugI02]

The pipeline is actually projected to either have no affect prices, or raise them in the Midwest. And that’s if it’s BUILT. Look it up.

Can we put you down as a YIMBY when they route the new 750Kv powerlines in your area? Or do you think they'll be run through where the little people live, if you think about that at all